Friday, June 24, 2011

If you're here, visiting from the Great Canadian Blog Bash, I hope you'll have a little look around at some of the fun we like to have around here! :) Take a moment to leave me a comment, cuz I'd love to get to know you!

If you want in on my tutorial on how to make these, head over to HowDoesShe? and check it out!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

We had a lovely birthday party for her, to celebrate her fabulous life so far. She really is a fabulous woman & I'm so glad my daughters get to know & love her as I do!

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The Internet is such a cool thing. Years ago, when I started out with photography, I took photos of my aunt & uncle's family (including Oma) and posted them on my new photography blog. My dad's cousin in Holland happened to be searching online shortly after that, for her family who had moved to Canada. She found my blog when searching for that name, and thought she recognized my Oma as her aunt. She emailed me & sure enough, we were family!

How cool that a few years later, she decided to come to Canada to see where her father had been and to celebrate her aunt's 90th birthday. Here we are, the girls & I, with Manon, in our living room in Canada. We loved meeting you, Manon!

It's basically your own set of virtual bulletin boards. You decide the topic for each "board" and then you "pin" things on the boards.

So, each time you find an idea online that you want to remember for later, you click on the "pin it" icon on your web browser (which you install when you sign up for Pinterest), and you pin it on one of your boards.

Then you can follow other people's boards and see what they're pinning. If you see someone's pin that you like, you can re-pin it to your own board.

It's a great system & I'm loving it!

Right now if you want to be on Pinterest, you have to be invited. I have some invites left, so if you want an invite, just comment on this post with your email address & I'll send one your way!

If you're already on Pinterest, come follow me! I'd love to follow you back & see what little gems you're pinning!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

I had THE best day with these girls on Monday. I had a car during the day (which is kind of rare), so we went shopping- to a dollar store to get some craft supplies, then to the mall just because. It was so much fun! We got a sweet deal when Bath & Body Works was clearing out some hand soap for $1.30, so we stocked up on some favourites. We went in a few kids' clothing shops (& bought nothing, but had fun trying on & browsing), and then we had lunch together (a sub with Fruitopia & cookies for a treat).

It wasn't like we did something amazing, but it was just a fabulous morning- then we had a long, lovely, snuggling naptime routine with stories and happiness.

I say "Daddy" a lot in my everyday life. It's almost always in reference to my husband, whilst talking to my daughters. Just over 5 years ago though, when I said Daddy, I was usually referring to my own.

I think my dad is pretty amazing. The choices that he has made in his life and the commitment and conviction that he has are something that I have and will always admire and feel proud of. He's a great man who is always thinking of others and being considerate of their feelings.

My dad & I one year, with the fish I caught(I was scared to hold them ;)

My dad has served in our church in numerous ways throughout my life. Sometimes this required him to need to type things out. My dad is not a speedy typist, so he would often call on me to help him out when I could. This is one of my happy memories of working with my dad, because I felt like I could do something worthwhile & helpful to him. I loved it when he would shake his head and make a comment about how fast I was. :)

That was back in the days that I lived at home. When I went away to school in another country, I kept in touch with my parents through long distance phone calls & email (which had a positive influence on my parents' phone bill!). Even now, I live a good distance from my parents and we often communicate through email.

I love it when my dad emails me because I know he has taken some time to compose it. And I love it when his emails are decorated with smileys and other little emoticons. It totally brightens my day :)

How do you stay in touch with your family when you're far apart?

-----------------------Here's a cute little video from Yahoo! Mail that goes along with the subject of Dads:

Friday, June 3, 2011

A couple of nights ago, I made a parachute out of a broken old umbrella. It was fun to be sewing again. I took pictures along the way and made a tutorial up to show you how I did it, incase you want to make one like it.

See how much fun they're having with it? ;)

The tutorial is over at HowDoesShe. If you didn't see it there yesterday, go on over & check it out! I'm excited to tell you that I'm their newest writer! I'll be posting a couple of times a month with fun ideas like the ones I share here. I hope you'll come over & visit me there :) (and you should probably read that blog all the time anyway, if you don't already, cuz it's full of great ideas! ;)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

In my last post I showed you the cute wall decals that my mom & I put up in the girls' playroom. Today I'm going to show you how much Katrina loved the little animals. Unfortunately, her mom was not very proud of her artistic interpretation of the playroom wall masterpiece.

Well, the Internet came to the rescue. I googled & I asked you on my facebook page, and eventually I discovered how to get ink out of wall decals.

Based on my experience, here's what I can tell you:

1. Do not use magic eraser(I tried- it didn't work, so I pressed harder, then I saw the colour coming out of the sticker. However, the magic eraser always works wonders on our ikea mammut kid sized table- and you better believe I've had to use it many a time ;)

2. Do not use Vim.(I find that Vim works for a lot of things, but not wall stickers- it'll take the colour out)

3. Do not use a cloth with soap. (well you could try it- it didn't take the colour out. But it won't take the pen out either)

4. DO use Rubbing Alcohol! (It really works & it doesn't mess with the colour of the vinyl.)

5. Depending on how hard your little artist pressed with her pen, you may be left with some colour & an indent on your stickers, but they'll look a lot better than they did right after she finished her work.

6. I am told that Goo Be Gone spray gel will also do the trick. And I even heard someone suggest milk on a cloth... has anyone ever tried that? Sounds strange to me.

Now, please tell me.... does anyone know how to get pen off of a painted wall, without taking the paint off? Cuz that little bit you see in the picture isn't all I'm working with ;)